"There's my uncle, or the old squire,--they're both younger men than I am.
One cares for his dinner, and the other for his bullocks and his trees.

But what is there that I care for, unless it is not getting among the sheriff's officers for debt ?" Then he took out a little memorandum-book from his breast-pocket, and having made in it an entry as to the amount and date of that bill which he had just accepted on the publican's behalf, he conned over the particulars of its pages.

"Very blue; very blue, indeed," he said to himself when he had completed the study.

"But nobody shall say I hadn't the courage to play the game out, and that old fellow must die some day, one supposes.

If I were not a fool, I should make it up with him before he went; but I am a fool, and shall remain so to the last." Soon after that he dressed himself slowly, reading a little every now and then as he did so.